False Report (6 page)

Miss Brook represented the best of the Old Style of doing business. She had managed the transition from card indexes to computers as if fingers had been invented for tapping keyboards, and she could sense a false reference at fifty paces. But perhaps, Ianthe hinted with sorrow, Miss Brook was beginning to let things slip, which, though understandable at her age, was not doing the agency any good.

Ianthe had a university degree and a delightfully warm manner, setting clients at ease from the moment they spoke to her on the phone or entered the office rooms.

Miss Brook had broken down and wept when she tendered her resignation. Bea had wept, too. They'd been through so much together over the years, but it was undeniably true that Miss Brook had been eligible to draw her state pension for a good number of years, and therefore ought perhaps to make room for a younger person.

Bea sighed. Oh dear. Happy days.

She wondered if it would be a good idea to telephone Celia about Jeremy, rather than email her. Yes, it would be good to have a chat with her, find out what she was doing nowadays. Bea delved into the right-hand drawer of her desk for her address book. It wasn't there. That was odd. She always kept it there.

Well, she could access Celia's address on her personnel files.

Except that the computer screen was asking for her password.

Bother. What was it today?

It was Ianthe's idea to change the password every day, and of course that was good business practice. The only problem was that Ianthe always seemed to come into Bea's office, to tell her what the new password was to be, when she was on the phone. It would be a mixture of upper and lower-case letters, with some numerals thrown in. Quite brilliant, ensuring no one from outside could hack into their system.

Only, Bea's visual memory was better than her aural, and it was beyond her to memorize something she'd been told but not seen written down.

In other words, she wasn't able to get into the office system. It wasn't the first time this had happened, or the second. She seized a piece of paper and wrote on it, ‘Ianthe; please give me the password in written form every day. This is my third time of asking. Bea Abbot.'

She considered the note a trifle harsh, but . . . no, it was fair.

She switched on her photocopier, copied the memo, and took it through to tuck under Ianthe's keyboard.

Looking around, she had to concede that the big front room had become rather crowded of late. Once upon a time Miss Brook had run the agency with the aid of two part-timers – and for a short time with Maggie, who'd never been much help in that area. Then Oliver had come to update them in every way, and after that dear Celia had arrived and been a tower of strength. All gone now. Bea hardly knew the names of the new girls who Ianthe had imported. All very bright and literate, with good telephone manners.

But somehow . . . the fun had gone out of the business.

Fun? Yes, it had been fun in the old days, matching difficult clients with the right personnel, solving problems that would have tested the imaginations of agony aunts, fielding requests to avert last minute tragedies; yes, it had been fun. And they'd felt they were fulfilling a need, smoothing their clients' path through life.

Now it was a business, run on strictly practical lines. There were time limits for everything. No phone call should last more than so many minutes, as time costs money. No private phone calls or emails were allowed. Other agencies should be called upon to supply hard-to-fill vacancies, even if the personnel had not been vetted by them.

It all made for efficiency, an improved turnover. And a small regret – which was most unbusinesslike – for everything they'd lost in transit.

Perhaps it
was
time for Bea to sell up and move out. She would find Celia's address, put her in touch with the little music man and . . .

Bother! She couldn't even do that! In her own agency! This was ridiculous.

She swept back into her office and went through every drawer in her own desk, looking for her personal address book. If it wasn't in the top right-hand drawer, then where was it? Might she have put it in her handbag? No.

Had she left it out somewhere? Most unlikely . . . but she looked, anyway. No.

There was one place she hadn't looked, and that was the small office which had once been Oliver's and had subsequently been taken over by Maggie. Her paperwork was always in confusion, but her jobs were almost always completed on time and within budget.

And there – ta-da! – was her address book, poking out from under some architect's plans.

Bea picked it up. It felt different. Grainy. And discoloured. She opened it at random and found much of the information inside was illegible. Had someone spilt a cup of coffee over her book?

A nasty, suspicious thought wormed its way up from the back of Bea's mind. She imagined she could hear Ianthe fluting, ‘Oh, poor Mrs Abbot, such an important little book, I know how much you rely on it. I suppose Maggie took it by mistake. Such a sweet girl, but perhaps . . . I hardly dare say it, as I know she's a special favourite of yours . . . but perhaps a little clumsy at times?'

Everything Bea touched seemed to go wrong.

FOUR

B
ea could well imagine Maggie borrowing the book for some reason and, yes, she might well have upset her coffee over it.

What she couldn't imagine was Maggie failing to own up. Maggie wasn't like that. Or was she? Was this trivial accident the cause of her tears the other evening?

Bea sat down in the chair at the desk with a bump. Was the open-hearted, vulnerable, feisty girl she had taken into her heart a reality? If not, then why should Bea worry about the girl's future?

Silence grew around her. The light faded fast down here, though it couldn't be very late. She looked about her, with an uncomfortable feeling that something was amiss. The chair she was sitting on, for instance. Maggie was tall, as tall as Bea, yet as Bea sat in the chair, her knees were pressed to the underside of the desk.

Which meant that someone had recently been sitting at this desk who was shorter than Maggie, and who had raised the seat to compensate for her loss of inches. Had someone else been using this office?

This room was something of a battleground, as Ianthe coveted it for herself, saying they were uncomfortably crowded in the main office. Which was true. But this was where Maggie kept all her paperwork: estimates, bills to be paid, enquiries, samples of tiles, books of wallpapers, catalogues. Maggie did use a computer, but she also kept hard copies of everything that passed through her hands, storing them in a fashion only she could understand, in various boxes parked in piles around her desk. On the notice board above the desk, yellow Post-it notes vied for space with postcards, reminders from the library and the dentist; evidence of a life lived at speed.

Something was missing.

There was no computer or telephone.

Dimly, Bea recalled Ianthe apologizing for removing Maggie's computer for a few days while another was being repaired or updated. But that had been some time ago, surely? Maggie had a laptop. She would have that with her. Ianthe had suggested they install a hub in the house so that all the computers could be used in any room at any time. Did that mean Maggie's laptop was subject to the same password routine as Bea's? Surely not! Maggie would have an even greater struggle than Bea to remember an intricate password.

And the telephone? Maggie lived on her mobile phone, which meant she wasn't always available to take other people's calls. Ah, but Celia had always taken messages for Maggie.

Celia had resigned. Who was taking messages for Maggie now?

Bea rubbed her forehead. Ianthe had been arguing that Maggie's side of the business should be completely divorced from the agency. Maggie should have separate insurance, said Ianthe, and submit her own accounts to her own accountant.

Bea had agreed with Ianthe in principle and said that she would discuss separating the two sides of the business at the end of the financial year, by which time Maggie might be able to employ a part-timer to keep her straight. Bea had suggested that Celia might be able to do this . . .

Bea did not like unanswered questions. No doubt Ianthe would be able to sort everything out on the morrow.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. Maggie couldn't have returned yet. She hadn't said she'd be out late that evening, had she?

Maggie's last job had been to organize the loft conversion at the top of the house. The attic rooms had been gutted and the space opened up at the back of the house, creating two bedrooms, a sitting room, a newly-fitted bathroom and small galley kitchen. One reason for Bea's recent holiday had been to avoid the disruption to water and electricity supplies to the house caused by the building works.

Bea made her way up the stairs, and as she did so, her mobile phone rang. She dived into the sitting room to disinter it from her handbag.

It was CJ. ‘I tried ringing your landline but it went through to answerphone.'

‘Sorry about that. I was down in the agency rooms and didn't hear it.'

‘Finding a housekeeper for Jeremy?'

‘I will, when I can get into the system. I seem to be locked out at present.' She tried out a laugh. It didn't work very well.

‘Mm. I heard about that.'

‘Did you?' Now how had he heard about it? Ah, through Oliver, no doubt. It made her wince to think that Oliver was still in close contact with CJ, but hadn't troubled himself to contact Bea for a while.

How had Oliver heard? Through Maggie, of course. Bea sighed. The clues went round and round and came out . . . where?

CJ said, ‘If you've got a bit of time on your hands, would you care to have dinner with me tomorrow night?'

‘Delighted.'

He switched off, and so did she. She wondered why she'd agreed so readily to dine with him. He'd not asked her out for dinner before. Ah well, he couldn't complicate her life any more, could he?

Thursday evening

‘Nance; this new girl. She's pretty enough, I'll grant you that, but there's nothing between the ears. Josie seemed to know by instinct how to get a man interested in her, but this one . . .!'

‘I'm not wasting all the research I did at the conference. The girl will be all right.'

‘I'm not so sure. Another thing; did you have to throw all Josie's things out so soon? It seems a bit, well, callous.'

‘I was fond of her too, but we can't risk the police linking her to our flat. If they can't find any connection to us, they'll put her death down as just another prostitute coming to a bad end. Life goes on.'

‘I'm not letting the little man get away with what he did to Josie. I'm going to pay him a visit, remind him of the realities of life.'

‘We can't afford to draw the attention of the police to us.'

‘I promise I won't lay a finger on him. But he's got to pay for what he's done!'

Thursday late evening

Bea inhaled the scent of new paint. Maggie had made a good job of the loft conversion. The rooms were light and airy, painted in white tinged with the palest of pastels, with matching blinds at the windows. The original furniture had been moved back into the bedrooms, and yes, the new sofa-bed had been delivered. Good.

But, there were no books on the shelves, no pictures on the walls; no attempt had been made to personalize the space.

Bea reminded herself that Maggie had camped out in the guest room downstairs while the builders had been in, and that Oliver was still away at university. Now the boxes containing Oliver's belongings stood squarely in his bedroom awaiting his return, and Maggie seemed to be living out of suitcases in her bedroom. As if she didn't expect to be here for long?

The living room should have been a cool and restful place. A white leather three-piece suite, a television and an occasional table had been delivered, half denuded of their packaging and left in a huddle.

A fine new wooden floor had been laid there, but it was currently hard to spot as it looked as if someone had emptied a filing cabinet over it – and stirred it around. Bea recognized some of Maggie's drawings, blueprints, estimates. Her familiar Post-it notes had been scattered liberally around. Her laptop was there, too – plugged into the mains.

Bea received various messages from what she saw, none of which gave her a happy feeling. The new rooms looked unlived in. She had a horrid suspicion that Oliver was never going to return home, but would be asking her to send his boxes on to . . . wherever.

And Maggie? Was she thinking of leaving, too? They had every right to live their own lives wherever they wished, but . . . Bea hugged herself, though the evening was warm enough.

Think positively, Bea. These rooms on the top floor would make an excellent self-contained flat to rent out if she sold the house to Max. He'd probably employ a nanny for his son, and she could live up here or in the basement rooms. Lucky Max.

From the back window of the sitting room she looked down into the garden, thrown into shadow by the sycamore tree at the far end. The evening sunlight was fading into twilight. Was that a star in the sky above the tree? No, an aeroplane.

Before her rose the pale spire of the church, one side lit to glory by the setting sun.

Dear Lord, I don't understand what's going on. I feel so lost. Everything I took for granted – my work, my family – is shifting from under my feet.

All right, I know in my head that life moves on, that people move away. I can't expect Oliver and Maggie to live with me for ever, but I thought . . . no, I hoped . . . no, I really believed that they were happy to have me in the background of their lives for some time to come.

I mustn't be selfish if they want to move on, even if I don't think they're ready to do so.

Again, I must not be selfish and keep this big house all to myself if they want to leave. I must be grateful that my grandson will be brought up in a house with a garden, even though he's hardly old enough yet to enjoy it.